


Another City

by The Sign of Tea (NoPlastic)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Agents and assassins, Angst and Feels, Backstory, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 19:46:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6128080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoPlastic/pseuds/The%20Sign%20of%20Tea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just another job for Mary, until she meets someone more interesting than any spy mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another City

**Author's Note:**

  * For [solrosan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/gifts).



> Prompt: Anthea/Mary, assassins for different agencies who happen to get the same target over and over again.

It all starts in Yekaterinburg. Winter nights, rough weather, and -20°C are a reason as good as any to seek warmth. Nothing about it is new to Mary – just another city, another job, another name. She only wants a distraction between missions.

They meet for the first time when they’ve been assigned the same target, Mary as an assassin, Anthea as a secret agent of the British MI6.

Glass shatters while Mary lurks around in the target’s flat. The document she was trying to find is in the desk drawer. She’s about to stuff it into her pocket when she feels the muzzle of a gun on the back of her head.

“I could kill you now,” Anthea says matter-of-factly. Hearing her voice for the first time, Mary immediately recognizes her as a professional. The way she speaks is cold and harsh in the way people like her train themselves to use. No feelings, no fear.

"That would be a little too soon, I guess," Mary replies in the same kind of voice. "Don't you want information?"

“No, but you’re rather good-looking, and I don’t feel like putting a hole into your pretty head. Can I rely on your discretion?”

She can, of course. They negotiate, Mary makes promises, and Anthea lets her go when she's convinced enough that she'll keep them.

The next time their paths cross, it’s almost the same situation, only the roles are reversed.  
It’s Mary who gets ahead of Anthea. She catches her in the act of searching the target’s nightstand, and puts a gun to her head. Before either of them can even take another breath, the crime boss and his assistant stumble into the room and aim their guns at them both. But whoever they thought they would find breaking into their house, they surely didn't expect two professional killers.

“Why didn’t you shoot me?” Anthea asks Mary later, over the bodies of the two men they took out together.

“Well, I need a distraction,” Mary answers, puffing herself up in front of the taller woman. “And you look like one.”

She gestures towards the corpses.

“You’ve already proven you’re good at… partner work.”

After getting rid of the bodies and reporting back to their employers, they meet again, in a bar on the outskirts of the city. It’s a gloomy place where the guests avoid looking at each other. After two glasses of whiskey on the rocks, Mary asks the other woman her name.

“Which one?”

“The one you like the most. I’m Mary.”

“Anthea.”

*

Anthea isn’t just a distraction for the idle hours. She’s strong and passionate. In the half-dark of her apartment, she can make Mary do things she’s never done before. She whispers words in languages Mary has never even heard before, and Mary amuses herself trying to guess if they’re endearments or insults.

Warmth is what Mary was looking for, and Anthea _is_ warm, in a feverish way, writhing on the sheets and creating heat between them.  
She keeps teasing Mary about her ‘efficiency’, as she calls it – how Mary’s profession has taken over her life to the point that everything she does - putting her clothes on, assembling her gun, even sex - is exactly like she’s learned to do her job. Clean, quick, efficient. Anthea teases, but she doesn’t exactly complain.

“Well, we have your tricky, convoluted government ways to make up for it,” Mary replies.

*

After a while, a call comes. _Dye your hair, change your name, and move to another town. Target in Rimini._

“Finally, I’ll get to see some sunshine again!”

Mary is excited. She feels like it’s been winter for far too long. Too much sitting around in dimly lit rooms, too many layers of clothes.

“What about you?”

Anthea looks up from a letter she’s been reading with an absent smile. She’s mastered to the point of perfection the art of looking like she’s not listening when she actually really is.

“Sunshine?” she echoes, making eye contact. “Oh, I’ve had quite a lot of that, lately.”

Mary takes so long to understand the implied confession of emotional attachment, that when she finally gets it, Anthea has already left for her morning run. Over breakfast, Mary thinks about it, pondering and brooding and cursing into her coffee cup. Unable to find any answers, she pushes it to the back of her mind until it's time to leave.

*

They meet again in Paris, a year and a half later.

It turns out that trying to make up for all the lost time in one night is more exhausting than satisfying.

“Stop,” Anthea says softly. “Let’s stop now.”

She curls up on the bed, and Mary pulls the blankets over them both. For the first time, they fall asleep in each other’s arms.

Both of them are very busy as the list of eliminated targets grows longer and longer.  
There are no more confessions – words seem unnecessary now, difficult things to say that would only make it more complicated. Little signs of sadness and frustration show on Anthea’s face when she thinks no one can see her. Both of them know the time they’ll have together is short, and the knowledge hangs over everything they do like a dark, heavy curtain.

One night, they go to see a revue show together, giggling and kissing in the dark. Afterwards, they find a nice spot under a bridge across the Seine, where they sit for hours and get drunk on tequila. Anthea tells a vivid story about her boss, whose brother is planning to fake his own death to take down a criminal’s web.

“My boss, he doesn’t care about anyone or anything.” She laughs. “Least of all himself. But for his brother, he worries and worries and worries.”

Mary nods and drinks another shot.

“I really should kill you now, Mary, you know too much.”

Mary nods again. She tells Anthea that she thinks about quitting.

*

Mary Morstan is a nurse and works in London. Mary Morstan is a dead child’s name. The nurse is blonde and friendly, and smiles often. It comes naturally after a while.

Love finds her first. Anthea finds her a couple of weeks later.

“So you live –.” She pauses. “So you live here in London now.”

“Yes, I’m a nurse.”

The café is a dull little place with old music and foggy windows. The two women talk about what happened in their lives since they last saw each other, fragmentarily.

“How’s your boss doing?” Mary asks after a while, remembering the little story Anthea told her in Paris, five million years ago, or maybe five seconds.

“Oh, don’t get me started.” Anthea sighs and shakes her head. “They actually followed through with their plan. He’s somewhere in Eastern Europe now, looking for his little brother, but he can’t find him. He calls every day and complains.”

She dips a biscuit in her cappuccino, takes a bite, and licks the crumbs from her lips.

“How’s _your_ boss? You must have one. A doctor.”

“Yes, he’s nice. I’m thinking about asking him out.”

Mary watches Anthea’s face for a reaction, but she suddenly seems more interested in what’s happening outside on the street, although there's really not much to see through the window.

“Settling down, then?” she asks eventually, glancing at Mary from the corner of her eye.

“Yes, I am. I’m planning to get married.” Mary’s reply is quite blunt, but it’s the only one she can come up with. “I want a real name.”

“Oh. Good plan." Anthea turns to Mary again, and grins. “So that’s why you’re going to date him, to legitimize your identity –.”

“No,” Mary interrupts her. “Because I’m in love with him.”

There’s not much more to say. They both leave on their own.

*

Later that night, when Mary is back in her flat, the doorbell rings. It’s Anthea.

Mary hasn’t told her where she lives, and she wonders if the fact that she found out is a promise (guardian) or a threat (potential enemy).

“I could destroy your life if I wanted to,” Anthea hisses, and pins Mary against the doorframe.

Her breath is whiskey and smoke.

“And I think I want to.”

That’s all it takes to make Mary lose control.

Their kisses feel like fire as they stumble backwards into the flat. In something akin to hand-to-hand combat, they make it to the bedroom – panting, clawing, fighting for dominance.

“Do it,” Mary whines, when she’s all fever and heat and aching to be touched.

“Destroy me.”

*

Rain patters against the window and the balcony door. Mary wakes up. Her fingers touch the sheets on the side of the bed where Anthea was when she fell asleep. The sheets are cold now. Mary is alone.

“Oh my, this was a mistake,” she mutters to herself as she sits up on the bed.

When and how did she become so soft that someone could make her lose control like that? This is exactly what she wanted to be… Or maybe it was just another self-destructive act, although she’s not sure which self it would destroy. She is so many people, so many names, but still the same person - in the way she kills, in the way she breaks hearts. Clean, quick, efficient.

Her feet touch the cold floor, and she looks around for her socks. She finds them on the new blue carpet – next to Anthea’s shoes.

If her shoes are still there, she can’t be far away.

“Where –?”

A cold breeze tickles Mary’s neck, and she glances up at the balcony door. It’s ajar. Anthea is standing outside on the balcony, in the pouring rain, with a cigarette in her hand.

After putting on a dressing gown and recollecting herself a little, Mary goes and pushes the door open.

“Come back inside?”

Anthea turns around. Her mascara is smudged, and Mary can’t even tell if the rain or tears are responsible for that. Water runs from Anthea’s hair down to her chest, soaking through her blouse. The cigarette is wet and useless. Her nose wrinkles in disdain as she looks at it, and she flicks it over the balcony rail.

“Hey.” Some gentleness in her voice might help, Mary calculates, and immediately hates herself for calculating. The inner walls that used to protect her from self-loathing have become thin. “Are you alright?”

“Ah, as if you cared.” Shoving past Mary, Anthea strides back into the bedroom, picks her shoes up and puts them on.

“Do you need a towel?”

“No, I’m fine”, Anthea replies with a smile, all professional now. “Completely fine. Have you seen my phone?”

Her mobile is under the bed, and Mary gets on her knees to pick it up for her.

“Will you come back?” she asks as Anthea takes the phone from her hand. The accidental touch of their fingers makes her flinch, torn between wanting her to leave and wishing she would stay.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Anthea says softly, her voice betraying her emotionless expression.

She walks away, and Mary can’t help padding after her on her socked feet through the kitchen. The tiles, the air, everything is cold. At the door, Anthea gives her one last smile that ends up looking like a grimace someone would make at a stray cat that just jumped out of a bin.

“I should feel sorry for you, I guess. You’ll never have a name that is your own.”

Her voice is cold, too. Mary shivers and pulls her dressing gown a little tighter around herself.

“It’s like a life sentence, you know,” Anthea mutters as she turns away. “Or even worse than that. The past will never leave you alone.”


End file.
